Crimson Balverine
by gloamglozer3
Summary: there are many fearsome creatures within Albion. but the Balverine is one of the worst, especially the white Balverine. but what if there was another kind of Balverine? one that only showed up once every thousand years. this tale will tell that story.
1. Chapter 1

The crimson Balverine

Prologue

Long ago, there was a land called Albion. This land was ruled not be any lord or king, merely by its people and the choices they made.

The people also had protectors called heroes. Men and women who trained themselves in the way of the will, a practice of magic that required affinity with light or dark alignments. They also trained in stealth and power.

These warriors protected the people and did quests for them to gain renown and fame, from escorting traders from town to town to slaying monsters that had been damaging crops to killing residents of the towns.

One of these monsters was known as the Balverine. A horrible werewolf like creature with speed grace and power, as well as a mind that could think and devise plans to capture its prey. But even more terrifying was that these creatures hunted in packs ranging from two Balverine up to at most six.

However, even though Balverine are fierce they are merely the more common of the species, at the top of the Balverine food chain is the White Balverine. A beast resembling its brown counterpart but standing at a height of eight feet while it's brown relative is only six feet. The other noticeable difference between the common Balverine and the White Balverine is that the White Balverine' fur is a luminescent white that feels as soft as silk. Though normally if you can feel the fur of either balverine chances are you are already dead.

The white Balverine is rarely seen do to the requirements for one to be born. Not only do you have to be bitten by a regular balverine and survive but you must be bitten on the night when the moon is at her fullest to become a white balverine. Another even more rare method of the transformation is to be bitten by a white balverine, but that event is few and far between due to the fact that white Balverine tends to kill their prey before biting them.

Enough of the monster history though.

Our story begins in the midst of Dark Wood, a terrifying forest pitched forever in eternal night, during the night of a blood moon, an event that occurs only once every thousand years in Albion.

Trekking through the forest is a young lad barely into his eighteenth winter carrying a load of meat upon his shoulder dripping with blood from his impatient of waiting for the butcher in Bowerstone to bleed the meat dry before setting of for home in Oakville.

Now there are only four types of people who travel through Dark Wood alone at any time.

Hero's who are trained to deal with any situation the find themselves in. Traders who must travel to make their living. Bandits who are looking to kill and steal from afore mentioned traders and finally those who have no clue what they are doing and have an obvious death wish.

Our future hero is unfortunately at this time is none of the first three mentioned groups.

Chapter one

"Bloody freakin' butcher! Twenty gold pieces to cut up a piece of meat I hunted, skinned and d-gutted! Honestly if he wasn't the only butcher close enough to Oakville I would put up a mission card for a hero to...dispose of him" came the aggravated mutterings of a young man.

This young man's name was Darrious. He was of large build with shoulders as broad as bull a horn, his face was unshaven with much hair decorating his lower jaw and especially so on his chin. His brown dirt hair was course and curly, if you looked close enough you could see a few comb teeth tangled in its constricting mess.

His eyes however where a different matter, the irises that with all people where coloured, but his where bone white. A description that was once used to describe them by a little girl of five winters was, 'his eyeballs look like my mummy's dough balls with little black stones in them.' Needles to say that Darrious's eyes where enough to set most villagers on end with superstition, add to the fact that he was found on the orphanage doorstep at the age of six with no recollection of where he came from or how he got there really set him off as Oakville pariah.

On this winter night Darrious was making his way from Bower Stone after obviously visiting the butcher back to his 'home town of Oakville'. There was only one problem with his journey... well actually a few things where wrong.

First he was travelling through Dark Wood without an escort, something only the foolish would attempt. Second thing, it was night when all the monsters would be walking up looking for their breakfast. Third thing that he did wrong, travelling through Dark Wood during a full moon, when Balverine sittings had been at an all time high. The fourth thing that was wrong with his idea of travelling home through dark wood on this cold winter night was a fact that was not entirely his fault. He travelled through dark wood on the night of a full crimson moon.

The crimson moon was something that only happened once every thousand years in Albion, so the superstition and stories pertaining to it have been lost for over five thousand years. But tonight Darrious is about to learn one legend... by becoming it.

As Darrious was trudging through the snow covered ground, talking all do precaution to not trip over any knurled roots that maybe hiding underneath its virgin cover, a sound caught his ear, a sort of 

growling that sent cold spikes through his spine and ripped his stomachs lower casing straight out of him.

It was a sound he knew well from one of his 'adventures as a child'. It was a growl of a Balverine.

With his neck stiff as bone, Darrious turned his head slowly almost begging with himself not to look. So it was with his lone black pupils shrunken to the size of a small ink splotch that he viewed not just one Balverine behind him, but a full back of six.

Staring into twelve sets of blood red eyes that where jerking between him and the slab of meat he carried upon his shoulder that was dripping blood down onto his cloth shirt straight down to his faded blue farm jeans.

"_I got to get out of here._"  Was all that was running through Darrious mind as he trembled like a rabbit before a hungry fox. "_Run you idiot_" something growled from deep within him "_**RUN!**_" and so with that Darrious flung the meat toward the six Balverines, turned tail and ran off the path and straight into the true depths of Dark Wood.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

'_Run faster, run faster you fool!' _was the only coherent thought thrashing throughout Darrious's mind as

he tore past dead bushes that reached to drag his pace with their clinging fingers, and water smooth

stones cover in ice, trying to stumble him from escaping the untold pain that was currently distracted by

the meat he had just recently discarded to help in his sharp departure from what would, in Darrious's

be a untimely and gruesome end to his short eighteen years of life.

From his back Darrious became aware of the sound produced by multiple feet smashing the ground

and quickly getting louder and louder as the pulses of his heart grew harder with his ears.

Stealing a brief moment of sight from where he was running toward Darrious glanced back briefly to

view the back of Balverines quite literally on his heels, just running right behind him, not attacking, just

pursuing him, like a cat would a mouse.

During his brief glance to his pursuers Darrious had smashed his way through a thicket of thorns into a

enclosed field surrounded by the dead trees common to Dark Wood only to smash head first into

something quite unyielding , causing him to be thrusted backwards from the object and falling to the

ground, trying to catch his breath in his state of utter terror.

Slowly regaining his bearings, Darrious sluggishly crawled to his knees, slowly raising his head to view

what he had impacted upon. And with all his faith in the holy God Avo he wished he had been born

blind. For there hunched over before him was something Darrious feared more than any Balverine,

hunched before him with silvery white fur, demonic yellow eyes that pierced his soul and claws as long

as daggers clinging to its finger tips was a White Balverine, a pack leader of any common brown

Balverine.

So intrapted within his own terror, Darrious never noticed as the Balverines that had been chasing him

gallop into the clearing and surround both him and the White Balverine.

Minutes seemend to drag themselves into hours as Darrious just stared at the monster before him,

waiting for it to make the first move that would begin the slaughter.

After two minutes of gazing at each other the White Balverine lifted its head to the bloody red moon

and tilted its head as if listening to some phantom voice that only it could hear. A twitch of the neck was

all the warning Darrious received as the White Balverine snapped its head back towards him and lunged

like an arrow out of a crossbow straight towards him arms and claws extended , mouth opened as wide

as a bear trap, ready to snap shut the instant something solid was placid within it. Darrious didn't even

have time to scream before the Balverine knoced him back to the ground, this time with it pinning him

there.


	3. Chapter 3

Happy New Year

Chapter three

_And so for hours the beast tore into Darrious, rending apart his flesh like weak cloth. Its teeth gouging _

_into his right shoulder and ripping out his arm and tossing it to its common brethren that circled this truly _

_hellish ritual being committed._

_For what seemed like a eternity to Darrious the White Balverine laid into him like a butcher hacking _

_away at a cows carcass, until finally as the bloody red moon reached its highest peak did the albino beast _

_ended his leaving hell by slashing a single claw across his left eye from just above his eyebrow, gouging it _

_in such a way that the eye was damaged but not destroyed, leaving the claw to race along until it exited _

_his upper lip and withdrew back to the White Balverine side with its hand._

_With its work finished the_ _colorless monstrosity growled to its companions and dashed into the deep _

_reaches of Dark Wood, where only the children of Scorm dared to approach leaving Darrious little more _

_than a mass of ragtag flesh laying in the cold virgin snow, quickly converting its color with the red dye of _

_his own life fluid._

_Broken, alone, frightened, disfigured and slowly dying Darrious began to grow weary, and began to pray, _

_not to Avo for that god had obviously forsaken him, but to Scorm, the evil god that may take mercy upon _

_him. Oh how foolish this boy truly is._

Breathing was all he could do and even that was excruciatingly painful; his chest having been raked

several times by the White Balverines claws, there was nothing he could do but mentally pray to Scorm

as he waited to die.

"Hear my pray oh dark one! Help me in this, my hour of dying and I will do your bidding, I will be your 

servant just please spare me life, I care not how you do it just please I beg of you, rescue me from the 

clutches death's cold shadowy blanket." And so with that pray and his vow did Scorm answer Darrious's

plea.

The soft crunching of snow drew Darrious away from his justified self-pity to his right armless side to

view something that brought him a small sense of relief but a large amount of sub concise fear. It was a

woman, how with Darrious' hazy mind due to loss of blood appeared to be in her early 30.

Her beauty was stunning and almost unearthly, her hair a deep vibrant gold that shimmered in the red

glow of the moon, her eyes as green as fresh spring moss growing on a tree, bit the strangest thing of all

was that she was naked for all the world to see, and to Darrious' young male mind even in his near

death state, there was a lot to see, especially with her hourglass figure and above average bust.

After staring at each other for a few minutes, him out of his one good eye, she spoke with a slight giggle

and as smoothly as silk.

"Awwwwww. The poor little one got hurt, did some mean bullies beat up on you? Well don't worry little

dear heart" she spoke as she kneeled down next to him, while digging her arms under the snow to lean

him up against her "mommy is here now and is going to make you feel much better."

Through the thick murky fog that had become his mind Darrious couldn't understand what was going

on, let alone do anything about it, especially considering the wounds he had, all he could mutter was a

confused

"Whaaaa….?" Before the woman placed his head upon her right breast and whispered

"Shhhh, drink mommy's milk, it will make you better, and much stronger, trust in mommy and all will be

well." And as she spoke, milk began to flow from her nipple and into Darrious's mouth, which in his

weakened state had reverted back to primal instincts and could do no more than swallow, as his mouth

filled with her milk. Suddenly the milk began to change taste as it flowed, becoming more coppery and

lighter, with a sudden rush of realization that brought him out of his pain induced daze he realized that

somehow her milk had changed to blood!

Before he could start to struggle the woman gripped the back of his head and held him to her bosom in

vice hard grip while whispering loud enough for him to hear

"Now now little one, don't struggle with mommy and drink your milk, all will be well soon, sleep now

sleep."

And as she spoke the words Darrious felt his eyes grow heavy, weather from blood loss or some spell

this harlot had placed on him, he began to drift off, towards a sleep he wasn't sure he would awake

from.

As he fell to his dreams the woman laid him gently to the ground, stood up and observed from her now

cold calculative eyes' as his wounds that he received from the White Balverine began to heal and

become nothing but deep dark scars that would forever mare his body with their prescience, all but his

eye and right arm where left not completely healed or not healed at all respectively.

"Hmmmm, well those wounds should heal by morning, either that or he'll be dead." She spoke with her

voice heavy changed from giggling silk to a cold seductive embrace. "Now where could those idiots be?"

she questioned out load.

From out of the forest came five figures all wearing the clothes of the servants of Scorm, four being

male and the last being obviously female from her figure and how she moved. As the five approached

the woman and the unconscious form of Darrious they bowed their heads and the female dark priestess

spoke.

"My lady" she spoke with utter respect for the naked woman before her "is he to be the one you wish us

to take care of" as she gazed upon Darrious with curiosity.

"Yes he is" replied the woman "and he had better be well looked after if he survives, I have plans for

him" she cast her gaze to Darrious "very……..interesting plans indeed"

"It will be as you command my lady" announced the priestess as she motioned for the four men to pick

up the body and gently carry it back the way they came. "is there anything else we may do my lady?"

she questioned as she raised her head only to find the naked woman gone, not even foot prints showing

she had been there at all. Sighing deeply the priestess turned and followed the men back to where they

came from, the temple of Scorm.

As the assembled group entered the temple the priestess turned towards the forest as the sound of

Balverines howling in the distance reached her ears. But this howling was strange; it sounded

almost….forlorn, as if the creatures howling where asking forgiveness for the part they had played

earlier that evening.

Turning from the forest and entering the temple, quickly closing the doors with a loud slam, that fate of

Albion was beginning to unfold. After this night Darrious would begin to not only make his legend, but

also help to define someone else's down the road near the end of his journey.


End file.
